The Weakley Film News 11-24-2017

Hey, it’s Turkey Day week and yet there’s still stuff happeing in the film bubble!

In this week’s “Kill Your Idols” story, Charlie Rose has been accused of sexual misconduct by eight women.

In light of that, he has been fired by CBS News AND PBS. They are removing his shows, cutting ties completely. He has apologized for any inappropriate behavior.

So much for respectable journalists. The fires are burning bright, folks. It’s all coming down.

In this week’s “Cut the deck” story, actor Lizzie Caplan is in talks to join Channing Tatum in Fox’s Gambit movie.

The Masters of Sex star will play the female lead in the superhero movie. Details of her part are being kept under wraps.

The X-Men spinoff stars Channing Tatum as Gambit, a ragin’ Cajun whose ability to control kinetic energy enables him to weaponize playing cards and other projectiles. He’s also pretty handy with a bō staff. In the comics, Gambit was a member of the Thieves Guild before joining the X-Men. Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski will slide behind the camera on the film. It’s eyeing a Feb. 14, 2019 debut.

In this week’s “Other Lizzy Caplan” story, Lizzy Caplan and Micheal Pena’s sci-fi film Extinction, is being bumped from it’s schedule.

Universal Pictures announced Friday that it was bumping Extinction from its release slate — just two months before the Michael Pena-Lizzy Caplan sci-fi thriller was set to open in theaters.

Director Ben Young’s film had been slated to open on Jan. 26, 2018 and the studio did not indicate why it was pulled the release or whether it would be proceeding with distribution at a later date.

Michael Peña (Ant-Man, Crash) and Lizzy Caplan (Now You See Me 2, Allied) star as a husband and wife struggling to save their family from an alien invasion.

Young (Hounds of Love) directed from a script by Eric Heisserer, who earned an Oscar nomination for last year’s sci-fi-themed hit Arrival starring Amy Adams, as well as Spenser Cohen (upcoming Moonfall) and Bradley Caleb Kane (STARZ’s Black Sails).

In this week’s “I’m bummed” story, Jason Momoa, Aquaman in Justice League, said he heard about the critics response to the film, and it bummed him out.

“I try to stay the f— away from what people say,” the actor behind Aquaman told EW. “Some of my friends said, ‘Justice League isn’t doing well’ and it kind of bummed me out. But I didn’t want to look it up. I don’t want to look up the bad and the negativity. I don’t think that’s useful; it doesn’t help.”

Momoa, who has seen the movie twice, praised director Zack Snyder’s “badass” vision for Aquaman — but acknowledged that much of it had to wait for Aquaman.

“The challenging part is [the ‘Justice League’ story] is only about a weekend in Arthur Curry’s life,” Momoa explained. “[Fans] might be like, ‘Why is he that grumpy? Why’s he hiding up there?’ We had it all planned out. A lot of things got cut. But it’s not my movie. It’s a huge movie introducing three new characters, and for myself and The Flash and Cyborg, there was a lot that was there we just couldn’t get in.”

“It could have been two movies,” he continued. “We had some stuff with William Dafoe. The whole Atlantean part, about me being this reluctant king. There was no need for it because you’re going to see it in Aquaman. It’s not an Aquaman movie, it’s a Justice League movie.”

Yeah, it was still pretty bad.

In this week’s “More Agatha Christie” story, Twentieth Century Fox liked Murder On the Orient Express so much, they’ve decided to keep with the Agatha Christie stuff.

On the heels of Murder on the Orient Express, Fox is staying in the Agatha Christie business by putting into development Death on the Nile, its next Hercule Poirot mystery.

Michael Green, who adapted the screenplay for Orient Express, is penning the script, and while there is no deal currently in place, five-time Oscar nominee Kenneth Branagh is expected to return as director and reprise his role as Poirot.

Death on the Nile, first published in 1937, saw the detective on a vacation in Egypt and becoming involved in a love triangle gone murderously bad. The novel once again featured socialites, social climbers and high society’s help in the cast.

Just as Orient Express was previously adapted into an all-star 1970s movie featuring Albert Finney as Poirot, so, too, was Death on the Nile. The 1978 pic featured Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury and David Niven, among others. The story remains one of Christie’s most popular works.

Orient Express, which was made for $55 million, has chugged its way to almost $150 million worldwide since its Nov. 10 opening. The movie was produced by Branagh as well as Ridley Scott, Mark Gordon, Simon Kinberg, Judy Hofflund and Michael Schaefer.

Flarsky is directed by Jonathan Levine from Dan Sterling’s script. The comedy is currently shooting in Montreal. Lionsgate has set a Feb. 9, 2019, release date.

Rogen is playing the titular Fred Flarsky, battered by his own misfortune and self-destructive ways, who endeavors to pursue Theron’s character — his childhood crush and babysitter, who now happens to be the U.S. Secretary of State and is one of the most unattainable women on earth.

Serkis portrayed the lead character Caesar in Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes. He made his directorial debut on Breathe, starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, and is in post-production on the live-action Jungle Book, which Warner Bros. will open on Oct. 19.

In this week’s “Jude and Captian Marvel” story, someone close to the production has told The Wrap that Jude Law is in negotiations to play the male lead in Cartain Marvel oppostie Brie Larson.

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are directing, while Kevin Feige is producing. Geneva Robertson-Dworet wrote the most recent draft of the script, with Meg LeFauve (Inside Out) having written previous drafts with Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy). Victoria Alonso, Louis D’Esposito and Stan Lee are executive producers.

Concrete details of Law’s role are unknown, although he will serve as a mentor to Carol Danvers (Larson).

Captain Marvel starring Larson is the studio’s first female superhero to get her own standalone movie and will be a prequel set before Iron Man. Samuel L. Jackson will also return as Nick Fury for the film — this time without the eyepatch because the film will be set in the 1990s (presumably before he lost use of his left eye). Ben Mendelsohn will play the villain in the film.

In April, Law was cast as Young Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. He was also recently cast in The Rhythm Section, Blake Lively’s female spy thriller. Other upcoming projects include A Rainy Day in New York and Vox Lux. His most recent credits include King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Spy.

Well, Jude Law is keeping busy.

In this week’s “As we suspected” story, the opening scene to Justice League that we saw was originally much funnier.

As we all know by now, many fans are viewing Zack Snyder’s DC movies as too grim. There doesn’t seem to be enough lighter, funnier moments. These movies should have a sense of fun. Even DC Films honcho Geoff Johns declared the films needed more “heart, humor, and heroics” and said that the goal was to “make the movies fun.” However, one is beginning to wonder if anybody involved with these movies even knows what they want.

Justice League opens with Batman taking down a criminal, played by Mindhunter star Holt McCallany. The whole scene mostly exists for Batman to discover a parademon, and set the plot wheels in motion. While there are a couple of quips during the sequence, it’s mostly a straight-laced and pretty forgettable action scene. However, according to McCallany, it was originally much funnier.

“I love Joss Whedon. My scene with Batman was originally conceived as a comedic scene. That’s how Joss wrote it, and that’s how we shot it,” he told Men’s Fitness (via Collider). “I thought it came out great, but the studio felt it would be a mistake to open the film with a completely comedic scene, so it was re-edited a little bit. I was disappointed, but when I got home to New York I found a bottle of my favorite champagne and a note from Joss that said ‘To Battles Lost. Gratefully, Joss.’ I can’t tell you how much it meant to me that he took the time to write to me. Joss Whedon is a class act. I had the letter framed.”

So, Warner Bros. hires Whedon to lighten the tone of their films, and then tell’s him to not do that. Ugh.

Well, with that bit of randomness, I’m off until next week!Hope you all had a great Turkey (or Tofurky) Day!

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Author: Neil Weakley

Hi. I'm Neil. I didn't go to film school so I don't really have to justify any of my opinions about why I like a film or not. So there. But I worked in film for a number of years, so I have hands-on experience. That, and I've known Chris Mancini for, like, 25 years or so. It really is all who you know. :)
I'm mostly, but not exclusively, a fan of sci-fi, comic book movies, horror, comedies, and weird independent films. If you're an average movie-goer and want to know what another average movie-goer thinks without all the "feelm school" gobbley-gook, hop on over to www.comedyfilmnerds.com and look for me, Neil T. Weakley. I won't steer you wrong. Or follow me on Twitter @FilmNerdNeil.